


Barking at the wind

by Ruta



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Episode: s04e02 The Lying Detective, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Season/Series 04, Sherlock Series 4 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 19:01:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9338741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruta/pseuds/Ruta
Summary: - Barking at the wind, - she says, avoiding with determination to catch his eye as she is doing since she set foot in the apartment. She knows that he is weighing up her as an opponent, searching for the keystone that reveals the hidden power that at times, he confessed once, she unknowingly carries on him. - That's how I feel. How you make me feel. As if I was wasting my breath, my energy, my ... – she hesitates and bites her tongue. For a second, taken by the heat of the moment, she was about to utter the forbidden word.- Yourwhat, exactly? –





	

Nothing is easier than to delude themselves. Because the man believes to be true what he wants.

**Demosthenes**

 

  
\- You are upset. -

Sherlock's dark blue eyes are tinged by an inert hint of resignation. In another day, Molly would consider that a destabilizing detail. On this particular day, however, it becomes just an atrocious torture, another to which he is subjecting her against her own wishes.

\- You are upset, - he repeats in a dangerous manner, with the fury of those who don’t want to hear the version of a story because don’t find it to their liking. He tilts his head, the knuckles of the ring and little fingers pressed over the lower lip, the three remaining drumming against the hollow of the cheek notes of a melody of which she seems to hear the echo in a secluded corner of the mind. And, _oh_ , what is it if not the thrill of the devil*?

\- Why are you upset? –

Molly can’t refrain herself from noticing the details, the recognizable symptoms of the truth that he is offering so openly. The depressions in his emaciated and fatigued face, the suffering pallor, the shaking that cannot be controlled, the feverish light in his passionate and crazy look, a vibrant exaltation than at any other time would make her proud, but that in this case just breaks her heart.

Oh, the barbaric and insulting audacity of this man! If she possessed the necessary means, she would turn over the world, but what good would that do? Not to him.

Upset? _Upset_! A word so simplistic, banal. A word that sounds like a blasphemy, a lie. She is not upset, she is blatantly _furious_.

And yet, how many times it has happened in the past and what her anger has served? What results her disappointment has achieved?

Suddenly, the anger is crumbling on itself like a pile of bones pulverized by the battle of time, its unease.

\- Molly, - he calls her and something in his tone, the hesitation, the inquisitive and at the same time pleading cadence, does tighten her mouth into a grimace. - Molly, please, look at me. -

Hating herself for her own weakness, she turns. Immediately after she would prefer not have done it. Indulge him is never a good idea. Furthermore, it has effects even more unpleasant to her: it makes her feel... makes her experience feelings that she cannot stand.

\- Barking at the wind, - she says, avoiding with determination to catch his eye as she is doing since she set foot in the apartment. She knows that he is weighing up her as an opponent, searching for the keystone that reveals the hidden power that at times, he confessed once, she unknowingly carries on him. - That's how I feel. How you make me feel. As if I was wasting my breath, my energy, my ... – she hesitates and bites her tongue. For a second, taken by the heat of the moment, she was about to utter the forbidden word.

\- Your _what_ , exactly? –

It was obvious that it wouldn't escape him. Catch them in wrong, note their mistakes and then make them stand out in a miserable light, it is not what he does best? If she was still the woman who has been in the past, Molly would withdraw into her shell and muffled the damage, taking refuge behind a screen of pathetic excuses and babbling, but Molly is not that kind of woman anymore, nor aspires to remain so. The shining examples of Mrs Hudson and Mary Watson tenacity sculpt her back into stone, thin her fears until make tolerable the pain and the disappointment.

Molly raises her chin and her hands remain still, her voice is relentless. - My love. –

Perhaps it is the impression of an ancient hope, but it seems to her to see him wince.

\- Why insist? –

His question is the cruel blandishments of flattery. This is the idea that he has of her: the image of an unwanted and annoying ambition, the desire for an opportunity constantly disappointed, trampled?

Molly smiles bitterly. - Because the man believes to be true what he wants. – 

\- And what do you want? Molly. - One step, then another, in the awkward movements of a waltz. Sherlock is in front of her and the way he said her name, his concentrated expression makes her feel even more vulnerable and distressed. 

\- Nothing that I haven’t already, - she replies. 

Sherlock doesn’t exposes her lie, although he could. - Why are you upset? - He insists, as if it is a matter of the utmost importance. 

The enormity of the anger (the dismay and fear at the possibility of losing him) that she has brooded for more than one day has opened a hole in her chest. - Because you're dying. – 

\- I was, - he corrects. - I'm done with drugs. - 

\- Liar. - 

\- I'm not lying. Not on this. - 

Molly dares to believe him and discreetly she rubs the corners of her eyes with the fingertips. - What made you change your mind? - 

\- Not _what_. - He watches her fingers with a motionless enchantment. - _Who_. -

\- Well, then. Who? - Molly questions.

Sherlock doesn’t respond, merely staring at her with a wry smile that is almost prurient in its being deliberately provocative and condescending. His silence is a clear encouragement that urges her to find the answer by herself.

Molly wouldn’t want to give him the satisfaction, but the night is young, many hours have to spend before John comes to relieve her and she is genuinely sick (and tired, tired as whenever she is likely to see him throw himself from the verge of the abyss) to be angry with him. - I don’t think that we must give all the credit to Mrs. Hudson, nor to the ride into her trunk, - she teases him.

Sherlock’s smile flexes like the string of a violin, bending upward.

– And I doubt that we can deny the merit of John’s punches. –

'Go on' it seems to say the amused gleam in the back of his eyes, but the game is already running out. There are few, for this reason even more valuable, people who are really important to Sherlock. To know to be part of this exclusive club is a privilege that once would have awed and inflamed her of exultant joy. However, Molly has learned over the years that the favor of his affection offers sensational blunders. It's a snake biting its tail in a persistent and macabre exercise: two teeth of the poison, in one fair recklessness and enthusiasm, in the other panic and anxiety. Whoever remains that she has not already mentioned? A ghost and a regret. A mother, a wife, a friend; a little girl who keeps in herself the meaning of a love whose final act was ultimately sacrifice.

\- Not even them, - he prevents, easily sensing the direction of her thoughts. - It is not about them. - Unexpectedly he leans forward, his breath brushes her neck, against the jugular vein. He is so close that she can physically feel the warmth that his body, stretched by invisible threads, crossed by an eager and hectic energy, emanates.

He smells of tobacco, alcohol and broken dreams. He has the same residual smell of so many corpses that she has dissected on her operating table. It’s this thought that makes her move away from him, as if burned. The abrupt withdrawal produces a strange reaction in Sherlock, a shadow of hurt and betrayal cuts his face, but Molly tries not to care.

\- Culverton Smith. - With his arms crossed behind the back, Sherlock straightens his posture, ostensibly inspecting the wall. - While I had his hands around my neck and I struggled against asphyxia, I was able to reflect on previous personal considerations and thus to question their validity. –

\- What kind of considerations? –

\- Death, - he reveals with brutal frankness. - Mine, to be exact. –

Molly swallows a vacuum bite, dumbfounded. - You have solved it? –

Sherlock makes a brief nod. - I realized that I don’t intend to die. Not soon, not of a violent death, if I can avoid it. I intend to live with satisfaction many years to come. –

\- Good. - Molly agrees while a weight that she had not even realized to have, reduces its grip and melts like monosodium carbonate dissolved in a compound of water. - Good. It 'a ... - her throat tickles so funny - a pleasure that you feel that way. John will be happy to know it and so Mrs. H., and I bet ... - Molly blinks to disperse the tears, covering her mouth with the back of the hand.

Sherlock brushes her wrist as if it were something fragile and of rare value, his eyes have embraced that particular sequence of emotions that make up a growing progression. The flexibility of a soft kindness, something pliable that illuminates from the inside, sad and happy together. Overwhelmed by what she is feeling, but not intimidated, never again intimidated, Molly caresses the light down on his jaw.

She observes how he closes his eyes for the pleasure and pulls even more the face in the palm of her hand, in the same manner countless times she saw Toby search for her affectionate gestures.

\- With you, - she hears him whisper a few centimeters from her mouth, when the blue of his tired and bloodshot eyes is the only color of the room. - I intend to live them with you. –

Barking at the east wind, at the moon, at the stars, Molly thinks an instant before he kisses her, made her cry out in silence for years, but in the end it didn’t prove vain, nor without reason or effect, is it not so?

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I am devastated, but in a sort of good way. There are no other words I can use to describe the state in which I find myself. I have to come to terms with what I saw. Too much, just too much.
> 
> * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7rxl5KsPjs


End file.
